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SONGS -OF 
MY -VIOLIN 




: : Dl . 

Alfred L. Donaldson 




G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zbe •Rnfchcrbocket press 

1 901 








THE LIBRARY OF 

CONQRESS, 
Two CoHsa Reccivco 

SEP. 12 1901 

^^COPVRKJHT ENTRY 

CcLAS«f»iXX«L N«. 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 1901 

BY 

ALFRED L. DONALDSON 



Ube Tftnicfterbocftcr pcesa, mew li?otft 



TO 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER 



PREFACE. 

There is a scientific relation between the vibrations 
of color and sound, but the use that is made of this 
relationship in the following ** Songs *' is purely fanciful 
and arbitrary. In fixing colors to the strings of a violin 
I have merely chosen those which the tone-quality of 
each string suggested to me. 

The * ' Prelude ' ' to the Songs of my Violin appeared 
originally under the title of ** The Violin " in an 
illustrated number of The Outlook for Easter, 1899. I 
am indebted to the courtesy of the editors of The Outlook 
for permission to reprint it here, along with the following 
sonnets which have also appeared in that magazine: 
''Memory,'' ''Pain,'* ''Indian Summer,'' "Buried 
Thoughts." 

Through the kindness of Godef s Magazine I am 
allowed to reprint " Millbrook Valley " and " Shooting 
Stars," and through the courtesy of Current Literature^ 
"To a Pair of Blue Eyes." 

Alfred L. Donaldson. 

Saranac Lake, N. Y. 



CONTENTS. 





PAGE 


PRELUDE 


3 


INCANTATION 


lO 


SPIRIT OF THE ** G '* STRING 


• 13 


SONG OF THE " G '* STRING . 


. 15 


SPIRIT OF THE " D '* STRING 


21 


SONG OF THE *^ D " STRING . 


• 23 


SPIRIT OF THE *' A '* STRING 


• 31 


SONG OF THE ** A " STRING . 


• 33 


SPIRIT OF THE " E *' STRING 


• 39 


SONG OF THE " E " STRING . 


. 41 


STRAY SONGS AND SONNETS. 




Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in B Min 


OR. . 47 


MOONRISE 


. . 48 


MiLLBROOK Valley .... 


. 49 


Shooting Stars 


■ 50 


Blue Eyes 


. SI 


Memory 


• 52 


Pain 


• 53 



Vlll CONTENTS, 

PAGE 

Sunset 54 

Hope 55 

My Muse ........ 56 

Indian Summer 57 

Sadness ........ 58 

Winter Love Song 59 

Dream- Ad AGIO for Strings and Flute . . . 60 

Slumber Song ....... 63 

The Angelus 64 



PRELUDE 



WALDWEBEN 



Wagner 





Down Memory's dim arcade, in centuried 

gloom, 
Rises Cremona and the lonely room 
Where immortality was wrought in wood. 
Where Stradivari in his attic shop 
Drained his aspiring soul-life, drop by 
drop, 
To give his works their lasting lustihood. 

II. 

The room is small — a great beam overhead 
Where, in the Master^s days, the sunlight shed 
^^ Its warming rays on tender violins 

Waiting — as angels for their wings might wait — 
Till they were sun-purged and immaculate, 
, And perfect as new souls that have no sins. 



SOJ\rGS OF MY VIOLIN, 

III. 

All day the sun made of this place a nest 
While, like a bird that broods, it gently pressed 
Its golden heat into these shells of sound; 
Then with its westering cadence came a flush 
Of sunset gleams, aslant the evening's hush, 
And settled on the fiddles* amber ground. 

IV. 

And there they glimmer still, subdued yet clear, — 

As memory glows with dreams that once were dear, — 

And answer like an echo to the sun. 

With mellow yellows and with ruddy reds, 

And all the finer glints that sunset sheds 

Through stained-glass windows when the da^ is done. 

V. 

The lines are miniatures of nature's curves. 
Of those long, limber, God-begotten swerves. 
That lure the eye along the lonely strand. 
The bend of lilies and the stoop of trees. 
The fountain's arching to a Summer's breeze 
Are simulated by the Master's hand. 



PRELUDE. 5 

VI. 

As when the eye forsakes an incurved beach 

To glance adown a sparkling, golden reach 

Of distant dunes that far to sea unroll, 

So doth it follow the slim neck to where, 

Like four straight sunbeams that have lost their glare, 

The strings are focused in the swan-like scroll. 

VII. 

But these are beauties of the outward shrine; 
Within there dwells a beauty more divine — 
The almost human voice enchanted there 
Like some fair captive in a fairyland, 
Awaiting the fine soul and cunning hand 
That wakes the sleeper with a wand of hair. 

VIII. 

For, as the sea-shells found along the shore 
Retain the echoes of the ocean's roar 
And murmur with the music of the spheres — 
So are old violins inlaid with song 
Distilled of memories that throb and throng 
Athwart their dream-life of a thousand years. 



SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 



IX. 



The breast, perchance, was once a pine that stood 
The tall, slim prelate of some solemn wood. 
Upon the sun-slope of a Swiss ravine 
Where rushed the torrent of a mountain stream. 
Winding as thoughts wind through a troubled dream 
Adown to valleys where they wake serene. 

X. 

In Winter-time, amid purpureal snows, 
It caught the glamour of the after-glows 
That give the Alps the lustre of the Grail ; 
And there it breathed supernal solitude 
Intense with silences, supine and nude, 
Akin to music in the Doric scale. 

XI. 

In Summer-time it shadowed a deep pool 
In which uncurrent waters, brown and cool, 
Were hallowed in a font-like group of stones. 
A spot where, tired of an uncouth jest, 
A laughing satyr may have paused to rest 
Or pipe upon his reed Pandean tones. 



PRELUDE, 

XII. 

Or where, at midnight when the full-moon made 

A silver gloaming in the dusky glade, 

The mountain fays would dance beneath the tree, 

While singing songs and making tiny vows 

To soft susurrus of the rustling boughs, 

Faint as the nocturne of a distant sea. 

XIII. 

Then came a time when peasants of the Rhone 

With sturdy axe-stroke laid the pine tree prone. 

Driving it streamwise to the vale below ; 

Then peeled the bark — closed eyelid of its dream- 

And shaped the log into a massive beam. 

And brought it close in touch with human woe. 

XIV. 

For soon, athwart some peasant's lowly roof. 
It saw the weaving of life's warp and woof 
From cradle lispings to the lapse of death. 
It heard the sigh of want, the moan of pain; 
A mother's weeping for a soldier slain, 
A mother's blessing for a childling's breath. 



SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

XV. 

And now and then there crept into the room, 

As northern lights creep through the northern gloom, 

The whisperings of love and plighted faith; 

The sound of revelry, the songs of joy — 

Pure gold of hearts forgetting their alloy — 

Quick-passing as the shadow of a wraith. 

XVI. 

As tree-life passed into the beam of wood, 
So beam-life passes into fiddle-hood, 
The last Nirvana of the chosen tree, 
Where breast of pine and back of maple meet, 
Two souls of sound, with memories replete. 
That lose themselves in one, like waves at sea. 

XVII. 

So do we reach at last the perfect thing ; 

And when a master comes and makes it sing 

With tones in which a thousand years are massed, 

We do not hear the hand-stopped notes alone, 

We catch an over- and an undertone, 

We hear the present while we feel the past. 



INCANTATION. 

The night is come, and the Aladdin-hour 
When moonlight lends its nympholeptic power 
To help the conjuring of my Magic Bow; 
The Bow which, as I draw it, soft and slow, 
Across each string upon my violin, 
Can lure its spirits from their haunts within, 
And hold them to my wishings and my whim 
Until the night- worn moon is low and dim. 

So come, appear! Elusive music-sprites 
That gleam mysteriously in tone-delights, 
Like opal naiads of melodious waves ! 
Yield me the secret that my yearning craves, 
Teach me the meaning of the glints that throng 
Like phosphorescence on the seas of song! 



10 



SPIRIT OF THE "G" STRING. 



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SPIRIT OF THE **G" STRING. 

I AM the spirit of the silver ** G *': 

I am silvered sadness, 

I am moonlit gladness, 

I am that fine madness 

Of reverence half, and half of ecstasy, 

Distilled in moonlight of the month of June 

And set to music by the watery rune 

Of every stream that knows a little tune, 

Of every ripple lisping to the moon, 

Of all the fluent sounds that vaguely croon 

Upon the bosom of night's harmony. 

I may be seen 

In every sheen 

That shimmers in moon-scenery. 

I dwell within 

The violin, 

A sprite that serves the Magic Bow, 

At whose caress I wake and glow ; 

So draw it deftly o'er the string 

And, as the notes slow-cadenced flow, 

Hear what they sing. 

13 



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14 



SONG OF THE *' G " STRING. 




The East was tinged with lucent amethyst, 

Where slowly from the mist 

Emerged the moon, of erubescent hue. 

Threading the hazy side-lights of the sky, 

That change and glorify — 

Until it shone pure silver in pure blue. 



Beneath its all-impearling glow of light 
^^^_^In stately curves of white, 
V-HWI^^^^^- The solemn Nile flowed like a largo 

^^Sst^^^'^^^ strain, 

And seemed as if from the great vault 
o'erhead 
A moonlit cloud had shed 
C^ Its silver edge upon the darkling plain. 




l6 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

III. 

Reclining on the bosom of the stream 

A lotus lay adream ; 

Its petals, folded 'neath the sun's hot glare, 

Were tinted with the blue of those long lakes 

That colored evening makes 

In fairylands of cloud and stirless air. 

IV. 

All through the languid, Oriental day 

In drowsy sleep she lay, 

By frolic-plashing ripples gently rocked, 

Until the slantwise-falling sunset glints 

Made twilight mezzotints 

Along the night-path where the shadows flocked. 

V. 

But as the moon's first beam of silver pressed 

Its light upon her breast, — 

Love's waking kiss sent earthward through the mist,- 

The flower woke, as once the princess maid 

On whom the fairy laid 

The spell of magic sleep to be unkissed. 



SONG OF THE *'G?" STJilNG. 1/ 

VI. 

Awoke, and with a longing look upgazed 

To where the moon, unhazed. 

Seemed fain to pause, sky-centred, far above. 

She opened shyly then her chaliced soul, 

And into it there stole 

The whispered moonbeams of her lover's love. 

VII. 

She answered back in perfumes, rich and rare, 

That rose like incensed prayer 

In fragrant waf tures through the nave of night ; 

And lured her wooer with those sweet replies 

To linger in the skies 

And let her dream forever in his light. 

VIII. 

And oh! how yearningly he longed to stay 

Upon his lonely way. 

But, fate-compelled, he must his course pursue, 

Forever wandering through the welkin's main, 

Beloved, but loved in vain — 

A pale Ahasver of the boundless blue. 



i8 



SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 
IX. 

So night by night the lover came and passed, 

Till from despair at last 

The broken-hearted flower drooped and died. 

And when the moon that night beheld her dead, 

A circle round him spread — 

A wreath of light moon-woven for his bride. 

X. 

Then as he mourned in sadness down the skies, 

A lotus seemed to rise 

From everything his misty moonbeams met; 

The idols held it in their hands of stone, 

And like a wraith it shone 

From every pillared fane and minaret. 



SPIRIT OF THE "D" STRING. 



WALKURE 




SPIRIT OF THE ''D'* STRING. 

I AM the spirit of the ruby '* D/' 

The very quintessence 

And light efflorescence 

Of every rubescence 

Whose glow incarnadines the land or sea. 

I am the red that robes the cardinal cloud 

That near the Monarch Sun floats crimson-proud. 

I tinge the gossamer of polar nights, 

And winnow with the fitful boreal lights. 

I am the essence that the poppies keep 

To damask Eastern dreams in opium-sleep. 

In every red 

I live and shed 

My soul-tint like an ecstasy. 

I dwell within 

The violin, 

A sprite that serves the Magic Bow, 

At whose caress I wake and glow; 

So draw it deftly o*er the string 

And, as the notes, quick-cadenced, flow, 

Hear what they sing. 



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SONG OF THE **D" STRING. 



When the woods glow with tintings intense 
Like an orchestra, forest-immense, 
Bursting forth in some carnival scene 
Where the blare of the brass is bright redness, 
And the gold of the strings yellow deadness. 
Inwoven with reed-tones of green ; 



'T is the work of the god of the Fire 
Who with sparks of a vengeful desire 
Fiercely sets all the woodlands ablaze, 
"^J^ Till they glow like the cloud-racks resplen- 
dent 
Which at Night's ponderous portals are pendent 
And beacon the dying of days. 



24 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

III. 

Once at daybreak the Fire-god arose, 
And his eyes, glancing down on the snows 
Of the earth as it lay still in dreams, 
Traced a dimly discernible vision 
In the pale opalesque indecision 
Of Morning's first tremulous gleams. 

IV. 

'T was the Maid of the Spring who awoke, 

And, undraping her snow-ermined cloak, 

Trembled forth in a garment of green; 

While, at sight of her beauty enslaving. 

He who watched felt the pulse-quickened craving 

Of love that was sudden and keen. 



Through the clouds that the winds left ajar 
Oft he followed her then from afar 
As she threaded the woodlands and glades. 
Till he marked how a Sunbeam came shining 
Where she strolled with her garlands entwining 
The aisles of the tree-colonnades. 



SONG OF THE ''D " STRING. 2$ 

YI. 

Then at sundown he dashed from the West, 

All encrimsoned and gorgeously dressed, 

And discovered the Maiden alone: 

** Come with me! *' he with passion entreated^ 

** In the Wallhall of sunset be greeted 

As queen of my porphyry throne! ** 

VII. 

But the eyes of the Maid flashed with scorn, 
And he knew that his hope was forlorn 
Ere her lips uttered forth her reply ; 
Then in anger his pinions unfurling, 
He arose like a vapor, quick-curling. 
That vanishes into the sky. 

VIII. 

There he brooded till morning released 
From the pearl-portaled gates of the East 
His young rival, the Sunbeam, elate; 
Then the god vowed revenge, malice-laden. 
That should sever the Youth and the Maiden, 
And brand all the earth with his hate. 



26 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

IX. 

So at dark he shot down through the night, 
Like a star when it drops out of sight 
With a sudden, impetuous leap, 
And nor slackened nor swerved in his flying 
Till he came where the Spring-Maid was lying 
In canopied greenness asleep. 

X. 

But her face, as he paused to admire. 
Irresistibly softened his ire. 
And he kissed it to keep her from harm; 
Then to thoughts of his vengeance returning. 
Set the woodlands around her a-burning 
With fires ignited by charm. 

XI. 

And he watched with a jealous delight 

As the trees grew rubescent and bright 

And with colors dsedalian gleamed. 

Till the forests, streaked scarlet and golden, 

Lay inwoven like tapestries olden 

That Autumn had suddenly dreamed. 



SONG OF THE "Z>" STRING. ^7 

XII. 

While alone in the midst of the fires, 
Like the darkling and tapering spires 
Etched at eve on a sun-reddened ground, 
Rose the pine trees, erect and commanding, 
Each serenely and steadfastly standing 
Unscathed by the flames all around. 

XIII. 

Every year they have seen the woods burn 

And the lovers, thus parted, return 

To unite when the violet blows; 

Seen the Winter, the Fire-god chiding, 

Take his daughter, the Spring-Maid, in hiding. 

And quench the flames yearly with snows. 

XIV. 

It is they who remurmur the tale 
While their pendulous boughs seem to wail 
For the leaves that around them lie dead. 
And, like bards of an old superstition, 
It is they who have kept the tradition 
Of why the great forests turn red ! 



SPIRIT OF THE "A" STRING. 



LOHENGRIN 



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30 



SPIRIT OF THE '*A*' STRING. 

I AM the spirit of the soul- white * ' A " ; 

The spirit of whiteness, 

Its dullness and brightness, 

Its softness and lightness; 

The glamoured gleam of snows on Himalay, 

The downiness of clouds that dapple noon, 

The withered whiteness of a day-time moon, 

The sparkling whiteness of sea-foam and spray, 

The Summer whiteness of the Milky Way, 

The Winter whiteness which the snows immure. 

The unseen whiteness of a thought that *s pure. 

In these delights 

Of varied whites 

My essence lives and holds its sway. 

I dwell within 

The violin, 

A sprite that serves the Magic Bow, 

At whose caress I wake and glow; 

So draw it deftly o'er the string 

And, as the notes, smooth-cadenced, flow, 

Hear what they sing! 



31 



LOHENGRIN 




32 




SONG OF THE '' A '' STRING. ( 
I. 
The Sun impressed upon the lips of Eve 
A lingering kiss; and, gently taking leave, 
Undid its golden tresses for the night, 
To let them float upon the dying breeze, 
And get entangled in the tops of trees. 
Where darkness freed them from their 
sorry plight. 

II. 
The earth was flushed with a soft roseate 

hue, 
The meadow-lands were diamonded with 

dew. 
And to the air a fragrant scent bequeathed ; 
All seemed enchanted by the evening's 
spell, 

^ „ „ And from afar came echoes of 

a bell, 
As faint as if ^olian harps had 
breathed. 



34 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

III. 

A little lake, lost in an idle dream, 

Lay sleeping in the iridescent gleam 

That is the rainbow 'twixt the day and night; 

And on its bosom, tinged with sunset-pink, 

The tiny ripples seemed to rise and sink 

As with the quiv'ring of intense delight. 

IV. 

Upon the coraled surface of the lake, 
Scarce ruffled by a fan-like spreading wake, 
There slowly moved, with lulled and languid grace, 
A swan whose down was whiter than the snow 
That on some peak, *neath noonday's golden glow. 
Lies basking, sun-kissed, in supernal space. 

V. 

The eyes alone seemed strange, prophetic-dim ; 
And presently the swan forebore to swim, 
And drifted — as a cloud drifts through the sky. 
Then suddenly from that long throat there came 
A song without a key, without a name ; 
A long-drawn, ravishing, melodious sigh. 



SONG OF THE ''A " STRING. 35 

VI. 

A strain so sweet that, as it launched in air 
And floated to the ambient everywhere, 
All meaner sounds were hushed and put to shame ; 
The birds were silent in the woodland nigh, 
And e'en the cuckoo ceased his time-worn cry, 
To wonder whence the dulcet music came ! 

VII. 

Within the hedges of the neighboring vale 
There sat a sylvan, song-filled nightingale, 
And brooded o'er the lay he soon would trill; 
But when he heard the beauteous, swan-born air, 
His minstrel hopes turned into vague despair. 
And all that evening he was sad and still. 

VIII. 

At last, as twilight mellowed into night, 

The muted echoes faded with the light. 

And silence settled all the place along — 

Then, with a spread of wings, from off the pond 

The swan flew feebly to the shore beyond. 

And died, as died the echoes of her song. 



36 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

IX. 

Thus, moaned by zephyrs as they gently blew, 

Bewept by evening with its tears of dew, 

A swan of eld sank poet-like to rest. 

The haze of twilight was her funeral shroud, 

And where she lay there paused overhead a cloud 

Enwreathed with roses from the reddened West. 



SPIRIT OF THE " E " STRING. 



RHEINGOLD 




38 



SPIRIT OF THE " E ** STRING. 

I AM the spirit of the golden '* E '* ; 

I am sunlight glinting, 

I am amber tinting, 

And the yellow dinting 

Of every golden flower on the lea. 

I am the glow of the eternal star. 

I gild the streaking of the comet's scar 

When, darting through the clear, cool night, it spills 

Its trail to earth in golden daffodils. 

I am the Sun's refulgence when it lies, 

The oriflamme of noon, in near, blue skies; 

And in each beam 

I flash and gleam 

In tones of golden minstrelsy. 

I dwell within 

The violin, 

A sprite that serves the Magic Bow, 

At whose caress I wake and glow; 

So draw it deftly o'er the string 

And, as the notes joy-cadenced flow, 

Hear what they sing ! 



39 



RHEINMAIDEN»S SONG. 


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40 




SONG OF THE **E'* STRING. 

Beneath low cliffs that gently rising, sinking, 
Rolled far away into the deep blue sea, 
There sat a youth, half-dreaming and half- 
thinking, 
Who held a three-stringed rebec on his knee. 
He listened sadly to the ocean's throbbing. 
And to each wave that gently kissed the land, 
And to the music, like fair mermaids sobbing, 
Of water purling down the pebbled strand. 
He watched the westering sunbeams, slowly dying, 
Make golden islands in the sunset sky; 
While on the breeze, that came with harp-like sighing, 
He launched the sadness of a human sigh: 
** Oh, why, oh, why," he cried, 
** Am I dissatisfied ? 
Why with my instrument 
Forever discontent ? 

Why does it body forth only a part 




42 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

Of songs that are born but die in the heart ? 

Why does it never re-echo the whole 

Of th* ineffable sigh of the soul ? '* 

Thus sighing with the artist's keenest pain, 

His eyes went dreaming far across the main. 

When lo! in the cave 

Of a sea-green wave 

The lithe form of a mermaid gleamed. 

Pearly as a moonlit haze, 

Streaked with lucent chrysoprase, 

A day-dream of the brine she seemed. 

But no! she moves, she breathes, she sings 

A song like soft sea-murmurings: 

** From a golden isle, in the sunset sea, 

I bring a golden gift for thee. 

In the wondrous island a fairy dwells. 

Where earthly sighs are asphodels. 

At a spinning-wheel, spinning all day long, 

She weaves the sunshine into song. 

And she spins it straight into magic strings 

For harps through which the zephyr sings 

When it sighs through heaven the hour of rest- 

The mild- voiced curfew of the West. 



SONG OF THE **^" STJd/NG, 43 

One of these she sends as a gift for thee; 

A golden, sunbeam-woven * E ' ! '' 

The mermaid sang, and merged into the sea. 

The youth, awaking from his reverie. 

Smiled sadly, like the loser of a dream. 

Then from his rebec shot a sudden gleam, 

A gleam intensely pure, divinely bright; 

Such as the Grail darts on the trepid sight. 

And looking down amazed from where it sprung, 

He saw a fourth string on his rebec strung; 

A long, fine filament of fulgent gold 

That unseen hands had noiselessly unrolled. 

He seized his bow, still strangely marvelling, 

To play his joy upon the golden string. 

Oh ! how it throbbed and thrilled ! 

How it laughed and trilled ! 

Like a lark it seemed to the other strings. 

Like a lark that soars with its song, and sings 

Nearer the morning sun, 

Till the song is done, 

And it floats to earth on quiescent wings. 

Ever nearer the bridge the fingers strayed, 

Ever nearer the sky the soul was swayed. 



44 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN, 

Till, with that added string beneath his hand, 
He seemed to soar unto the sunset-land. 
And at those gates of song to enter in, 
Which naught could open but a violin. 



STRAY SONGS AND SONNETS. 



SYMPHONY IN B MINOR 



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46 



SCHUBERT'S UNFINISHED SYMPHONY IN B 
MINOR. 

Beneath the silver of the moon, full-blown, 
A spider spins his web upon the lawn, 
And one by one the silken lines are drawn 
Until he rests upon his finished throne ; 
Built with such cunning skill and so unknown 
To any eye or ear that when the dawn 
Reveals the beauteous thing, the mind is borne 
To miracles worked in some fairy zone! 

So thou, suave Master, with soft threads of tune, 
Hast woven from one theme a wondrous web 
Of melody serene, most wondrous sweet ; 
A moonlit cobweb spun of rhythmic rune. 
Swayed by a gentle tone-tide's flow and ebb, 
A work unfinished, yet for us complete. 



47 



MOONRISE. 

The air is stirless, and the sky is bare, 

One trembling star alone allures the sight — 

As though the great gray dream-gown of the night 

Were fastened with a tiny solitaire. 

When lo! beyond the distant hills, somewhere, 

An opal gloom reflects a sudden light 

That languorously looms and grows more bright 

Till that far space seems filmed with golden air. 

Then wonderfully, as a dream comes true. 

The rising moon emerges, large and round. 

And boat-like glides on night's deep-hushed lagoon, 

Shedding a lustre as intense and new 

As though the Incas' buried gold were found 

And molten into one huge yellow moon. 



48 



MILLBROOK VALLEY. 

Oh ! how I love thy endless shades of green, 
Pure valley, stretching to the bended skies! 
And oh ! the ecstacy, with dream-kissed eyes, 
To float adown the droning air serene, 
Which hangs above thee like a crystal sheen 
Of deep serenity — till dreaming dies 
In purple mists from which the Catskills rise 
And fringe with amethyst the fading scene. 

Or else to watch the slowly setting sun 

Spill all his colors on thy western rim. 

And leave them there, till from behind the trees 

The moon climbs skyward, like a lonely nun. 

And from sheer gentleness makes all things dim. 

I thank thee, vale, for moments such as these. 



49 



SHOOTING STARS. 

One Autumn evening, when the stars were bright, 
I paused to contemplate their host untold, 
All glittering with refulgence of pure gold, 
Like gilt-eyed daisies in a field of night. 
And, as I watched them with a deep delight, 
I saw one quiver and then lose its hold, 
And drop to nowhere. Soon another rolled 
Adown the sky and filtered out of sight. 

So, one by one, full many slipped from view; 
And wondering where they fell, my bed I sought. 
When I awoke, the dawn, behind its bars, 
Was flushing pink, and sparkling drops of dew 
Lay on the grass, and then there came this thought; 
That dew-drops are the ghosts of fallen stars. 



50 



BLUE EYES. 

I KNOW a tiny lake among the hills, 

So deeply blue that one would fain surmise 

'T were nothing but a bit of fallen skies, 

Or hollow where the summer noonday spills 

Its fluent azure, if it idly wills ; 

And, mirrored on its bosom, often lies 

The shadow of some cloud, that vainly tries 

To leave its image 'neath the tiny rills. 

To me thine eyes are like the turquoise pond, 
So blue and pure, and, like Narcissus-clouds, 
I love to pause and gaze into their deeps. 
And muse upon the hidden things beyond, 
And wonder, when I pass to motley crowds. 
If my reflection in them fades or keeps. 



51 



MEMORY. 

See yonder lonely tree, whose branches creep 
Aslant the crimson of the sunset skies, 
And how each blackened bough distinctly lies 
Like lace- work on the heaven's endless sweep! 
'T is autumn; and the unleafed tree in sleep 
Perchance is dreaming, as the dull day dies, 
Of Summertime, and leafy visions rise 
Of verdure which it had but could not keep. 

So Memory stands, a lonely tree and bare, 

Against the background of a fading west, 

A remnant skeleton of things of yore ; - 

And looking through its barren boughs to where 

The sun of happy days dips low to rest. 

We love it for the leaves which it once bore. 



52 



PAIN. 

I STOOD beside the lake at point of day 
Before the youngest breeze had left its bed, 
While shaggy mists still lingered overhead 
Or rolled themselves reluctantly away. 
I tossed a stone; it made a splash, some spray. 
Some short-lived ripples — and then all was dead. 
But still I saw it as it downward sped 
To unknown depths of liquid leaden-gray. 

So in the human soul sink stones of pain ; 
We hear the splash and see the ripples leap. 
We feel the spray, perchance, and then — forget! 
We see a smile upon the face again, 
And yet we know that, if the soul be deep, 
That stone must still be sinking in it yet. 



53 



SUNSET. 

Sometime, somewhere, when evening's colored elapse 
Hangs like a rainbow 'twixt the day and night, 
Hast thou not paused to drink the pure delight 
Of setting suns, and pausing, seen, perhaps. 
Two clouds, still drowsy from their noonday naps, 
Adrift in limpid seas of sunset-light. 
Draw nearer till they touch; then disunite 
And drift apart again in gentle gaps ? 

And so, meseems, like clouds that interswoon, 
That our two souls have met and intertwined; 
And if to us there come a sudden breach — 
A fate-breathed rift — then let us ask this boon: 
That we may part as when two clouds unwind 
And something of the other clings to each. 



54 



HOPE. 

Sometime, when you are resting tired eyes 

On shadows infinite and outlines dim, 

Raise them to where the new-moon seems to swim, 

In hollow darkness banked by Eastern skies, 

And notice how around the crescent lies 

The perfect circle of the full-moon's rim; 

So finely wrought, so indistinct and slim, 

As in the mind some dreamy, vague surmise. 

So Hope, that antidote for all our ills, 
Holds the faint outline of the thing to be. 
The forecast of fulfilment and its pledge. 
And if, perchance, the blank space never fills. 
For some dark cloud, thro* which we cannot see. 
To that same cloud it gives a silver edge. 
L.ofC. 



55 



MY MUSE. 

Thou know'st the legend of the lotus-flower, 
How thro' the long and languid day it keeps 
Its petals closed, as one who idly sleeps. 
But when the moon comes up at twilight hour, 
And like a lover climbs its welkin-bower, 
The lotus opens, as a child who peeps, 
Until, unfolding more and more, it steeps 
Its very chalice in the moonbeam shower. 

So dost thou come to me my moon, my muse! 
For in thy wondrous sympathetic soul 
Thou hold' St the ** Open Sesame " of mine. 
Thy very being seems to be a ruse 
To woo my inmost dreams beyond control, 
And make, in song, my slightest fancy thine. 



56 



INDIAN SUMMER. 

Oft have I wondered, when October plays 
Its trick of balmy day and stirless noon 
Holding mirage-like memories of June, 
Whence came the name of Indian Summer days ? 
Then, looking at the woodlands through the haze, 
I saw the autumn leaves in gay festoon 
Of red and yellow, crimson and maroon, 
Trailing like Indians through the pine-tree maze. 

And so, methought, some unthroned chief of eld, 
On such a day, in such a mood, perchance, 
Gazed on the forests that were his no more. 
And once again, in fancy, he beheld 
His painted warriors throng to war and dance ; 
And named the season from the dream it bore. 



57 



SADNESS. 

A SWEEP of furrowed meadows, dimly browned, 
Steeped in a summer evening's murmurous hush, 
And sloping gently upwards to a flush 
Of purest sunset pink. Beyond the mound 
A distant village etched upon the ground 
Of clear horizon, and perchance, a thrush, 
The Pan of Twilight, piping in the brush 
And waking in the air a lonely sound. 

Afar to Eastward, over dusky hills, 
A crescent moon hung on the edge of night 
And seeming loath to climb, lest it intrude : 
A saddened sense all thro' the landscape thrills 
And settles on the soul like some strange blight; 
And we feel nature in her saddest mood. 



58 




Thou art the snow, my love! 

Thy thoughts are like the flakes that down- 
drop pure 

Upon my soul, whose bare spots they im- 
mure 

From winds that blow, my love ! 



Thou art the snow, my love! 
Thy spirit sheds the snow-hush over mine, 
And through the silences thou must divine 
What thou wouldst know, my love! 



60 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

III. 

Thou art the snow, my love! 
And if thy precious nearness ever melt, 
Upon the heart-space where it once was felt 
A rose will grow, my love! 

DREAM-ADAGIO FOR STRINGS AND FLUTE. 

Begotten 'neath the sign of three glad sharps. 

From its blue cradle in the Key of A, 

The firstling chord is weaned and launched in air, 

And there it poises like some far-flown bird 

That down-drops on quiescent, outstretched wings. 

Then comes the misty morning of the theme, 

The murmurous suspense of things to come ; 

A rustling like the waking of the leaves ; 

A droning like the matin of a bee 

Before confession at the wayside rose. 

And then, aslant the haze of muted strings. 

There steals a sudden flush of pink and pearl 

Suffused from silver-tesselated notes. 

It is the flute has caught the drowsy phrase. 

Unravels it and carries it away 

To azure altitudes above the stave. 



DREAM'ADAGIO. 6\ 

Then clouds of harmony drift slowly by 

And bring a restful play of light and shade 

With shadows that grow longer one by one, 

Till soon the ear detects that gloom of sound 

Which is the twilight of the minor key; 

From which emerges, like the moon from clouds, 

The deep-voiced 'cello with a silver song 

That glides across the harmonies serene; 

As o*er the glassy bosom of a lake, 

Half shrouded in transparent, moonlit mist, 

There moves a graceful boat with feathered oars, 

And disappears into the vague opaque. 

So seems the 'cello's song to draw more near 

Ere, somnolently soft, it dies away 

To sobbing piccicato of the strings, 

Leaving a hush-wake mid the rippling sounds. 

Now from the chord of the diminished seventh 

There bursts in suddenness upon the ear 

The major theme — refreshed for having slept. 

The violin is there to catch its prize 

And, like the lark, which trails its song to heaven. 

It lifts it upward in a wreath of thirds 

And breathes an ecstasy of long-necked notes 



62 SONGS OF MY VIOLIN. 

That drop upon the ear like stars at dusk 
That one by one flash on the upturned eye. 
Then in the small, clear, round harmonic notes 
We hear the dottings that denote the end — 
The asterisks of music wrought in sound. 



SLUMBER SONG. 

Slumber sweetly, little dreamer mine; 
Stars are lighted in night's dreamery, 
One for every childling there does shine, 
Like a candle in God's nursery. 

Slumber sweetly, little dreamer mine, 
And thy little star will vigil keep, 
Shedding peace upon that heart of thine. 
Pouring dreams into thy darkling sleep. 

Slumber sweetly, little dreamer mine. 
Till the stars in heaven fade away, 
And the golden kiss of bright sunshine 
Wakes my dreamer to the golden day. 



63 



THE ANGELUS. 



AN ETCHING. 



A BROWN, sad waste of newly furrowed ground 
O'er which the hush of night is gently stealing, 
While thro' the peaceful silence born of sound 
The mellow Angelus is softly pealing. 

A distant village zigzagged on the skies 
Where evening's blush-light in the West is fading, 
While something that outside the picture lies 
Lends strange intensity to light and shading. 

And mezzotinted on this end of day 
Two figures in the foreground humbly praying. 
With thoughts that rise above the dusky clay 
And lend a meaning to the bells' soft swaying. 



64 



Comparisons all joys and woes — 
Of sorrows all our pleasures born, 
As often we pass by the rose 
If left unwounded by the thorn ! 



65 




66 



Sept 37 1001 



SEP 12 1901 



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